


Always As of Yet

by jibrailis



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 00:28:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3361064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibrailis/pseuds/jibrailis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she finally goes home that night, there is a man waiting for her at her kitchen table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always As of Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in between s1 and s2.

She’s tired on a cellular level. When she walks into her apartment, the heels of her feet feel like two large, deep bruises, making her wince as she takes off her blazer and hangs it in her closet. She sits down on her bed and removes her flats and then her stockings. She peers at her feet -- there really are bruises forming after chasing a latent criminal by foot down seven blocks. Ginoza and Yayoi had headed the man off on the east and south sides, but when he veered off to the west, it was Akane who pursued him alone.

Akane glances out her window. Rain. Dark and slick like oil sheeting over glass.

She needs to exercise more, she thinks. Running like that was harder than it should’ve been. She needs to eat healthier too. Her household AI monitors her calorie and nutritional intake at home but it’s the CID where she messes up, sneaking chips and chocolates at her desk. Lately, Akane’s hungry all the time.

She lies back on her bed and closes her eyes. Her household AI appears in its cheerful jellyfish form. “Welcome home, Tsunemori Akane!” it chirps. “The time is now 23:05! Your Psycho-Pass hue this evening is powder blue. You’re bound to have a restful night with that top-notch healthy mind of yours!”

“Candy-chan,” she groans. “Turn off the lights.”

“Tsunemori Akane, you are still dressed in your daytime clothes!” Candy-chan says. “Commence holo wardrobe change?”

“Yes,” she mumbles into her pillow. Candy-chan makes an adjustment to her wardrobe setting, the scanner sweeps over her body, and suddenly she is wearing her nightgown. There’s still foundation and mascara left on her face, but Akane decides she doesn’t care. She’s just about to fall asleep when Candy-chan speaks again.

“You have one new voicemail, caller unknown. Should we wait until morning to play it?”

“No,” she says, yawning, “play it now.”

When she hears Kougami’s voice, her entire body feels like it’s been pin-pricked. She’s no longer sleepy. Akane sits up in bed. “Hey,” Kougami is saying, and she hopes he’s been smart enough to use a disposable phone, something that can’t be traced -- though why is she worrying? Kougami is too smart to make rookie mistakes like that. “I’m back in the country,” Kougami says. “Can’t tell you where, but it’s beautiful. The skies are blue. I stayed with a nice couple this morning. They fed me natto and miso soup and didn’t ask too many questions. Maybe they should have. They let me pet their dog.”

Akane closes her eyes and hugs her pillow to her chest. Kougami shouldn’t be contacting her like this, it’s too dangerous, but just hearing his voice makes her feel at peace. There are so many things she wants to say to him, things like _I hope you’re warm, are you eating well, don’t push yourself too hard, do you regret what happened_ , but of course she can’t contact him. All she has are his occasional messages, banal and cryptic. He’s alive and taking it one day at a time, she thinks, and if he can do it, she can too.

:::

Tsunemori Akane has never been in love. The people who don’t know her very well think this is quite strange. She’s a healthy young woman, not exactly beautiful but passably cute, and she is quiet and well-mannered, never one to make a fuss. When she turned sixteen, her grandmother had beamed at her and told her she would make a wonderful bride. Her father and mother had laughed, telling Akane to never mind Grandma’s old-fashioned values, that with her test scores and Psycho-Pass she could become far more than just a bride, but conventions die hard. In another time, Akane thinks, even a few decades ago that might have been all she could hope for. Get a job, work a few years, get married, have children, stay at home.

It’s what many women still do. The Sibyl System provides special dispensation for stay at home Japanese mothers because happy, stable families create happy, stable populations.

Some people might look at Akane and think this is what she is best suited for, in her brown bird humble ordinariness, but Tsunemori Akane has never been in love. She wouldn’t know where to start. Love seems like, well, it seems like it’s for other people, people who feel things more strongly than she does, people who laugh and scream and yell and cry. She wonders if the same thing that keeps her Psycho-Pass so clear is the same thing that keeps her from looking at the men she knows and thinking, _Yes, him_.

She’s curious about the experience. She’s gone onto dating websites and clicked through the profiles with the highest percentage match to hers. But each time she gets a message she sends a brief, polite response back saying that she’s too busy to meet for coffee. It’s true, most days. 

The men who message her are well-educated, handsome, with good Psycho-Passes, and _nice_. Akane likes nice. She considers herself a nice person. It’s very important to her to live in a world where people treat each other kindly, with respect, even when trying to find a romantic partner. But these men never stir her and she wonders if, somewhere between the time she first pointed a Dominator at another human being and when she and Kougami had stalked Makishima side by side, guarding each other's backs, something in her had changed.

:::

There’s a book leaning against her apartment door. She picks it up and turns it over. It’s W. Somerset Maugham’s _Of Human Bondage_. She doesn’t need to wonder who sent it.

There’s a handwritten note scribbled in the frontispiece. _Human bondage = the strength of our emotions??? Maugham takes idea from Spinoza_. 

For a hunting dog, Akane thinks wryly, Kougami sure knows a lot about literature. She’ll have to look up some of these names later.

She puts the book on her shelf with the others. It’s a risk -- these titles aren’t banned per se, but they do fall into that grey category where reading them is likely to cloud your Hue. It might matter more if she were in the habit of inviting people over, but she isn’t, not since Yuki died. 

She sighs out loud. It’s been another long day. Area psychological stress levels had increased in two different parts of the city, forcing her to divide the team. She isn’t too keen on letting Mika go without her supervision. Mika’s becoming a technically capable Inspector but she’s stubborn and rigid, and Akane isn’t comfortable with her blind trust of the Sibyl System and what actions it might lead to. She always sends Ginoza with Mika, just in case.

“Since when,” Ginoza had said out of earshot, “is blind faith in Sibyl a bad thing for an Inspector?”

He and Akane had exchanged looks then. “Keep her safe,” was all she said, pulling out her own Dominator.

She has nightmares about the Sibyl System and what she saw in that basement. She wakes up sweating and thrashing, her pillow stained with tears. How can her Hue stay so clear when her dreams are so troubled is a mystery, but it does. Akane knows that her team wonders if she may be criminally asymptomatic, and she herself doesn't know the answer, only that if she is, then she's chosen to use her differences for positive change, not destruction. It doesn't change her dreams, though. Both the nightmares and the other kind too.

Dreams about Kougami, she thinks, sitting down on her bed. Her Kougami dreams are often bloody and fearful, consisting of confused flashbacks to them hunting Makishima, except where Kougami had carried her through the pale yellow fields, she dreams that he had kissed her too. That when he set her down before he continued on foot after their enemy, he’d pressed his lips against her forehead briefly before letting go. Akane knows it’s a dream, as Kougami would never do anything like that in real life, but it’s the touch of his mouth that always troubles her the most. In her dreams his lips are always chapped and dry, and her skin too hot, like a scalding layer of milk over her bones.

If she thinks about his mouth on her forehead, she thinks about his mouth on other parts as well. Akane does not have objections to sex, understand. She may be inexperienced but she’s not a prude. Yet these dreams make her feel like she’s taking advantage of Kougami’s memory, that she’s using a friend that she misses very much for vulgar purposes. What she and Kougami worked towards, for better or for worse, was a purpose larger than the two of them. It was for a world where people could live freely and without fear. 

It definitely wasn’t for lewd fantasies where Akane slips her hand under the band of her underwear and touches herself, biting her lip tentatively at the same time.

But maybe it doesn’t matter. Sexual desires are a healthy part of mental well-being. Denying her own body’s natural responses isn’t conducive to anything. And she’s never going to see Kougami again, so he’ll never find out. They’ll just continue normally. Well, as normally as a fugitive and a high-ranking MWPSB Inspector can be.

:::

She gets invited to a great deal of parties these days. Chief Kasei likes to parade her around the politicians and show her off. These politicians, mostly men with wide bellies and quick laughs, are delighted to see such a level-headed young lady hard at work keeping latent criminals off the streets. Akane bows, makes small talk, avoids the wine offered to her, and leaves as soon as she thinks she can get away with it. Spending too much time beside Chief Kasei makes her stomach churn, and the truth of what lies beneath the Chief’s skin beats inside Akane like a moth.

When she finally goes home that night, there is a man waiting for her at her kitchen table. 

“K-Kougami-san,” she says, startled, resting one hand against the doorframe. This morning, before she’d left, she’d set her room preference to Farmyard Rustic. It suits Kougami very well, or might have suited him well, that is, if he weren’t covered in blood.

“Kougami-san!” she says again, hurrying over. Questions crowd the roof of her mouth like germs. How did he get in? Why didn’t Candy-chan call the police? How long has he been here? But Akane quickly prioritizes what’s most important, which is that Kougami is wounded and needs medical attention.

“Candy-chan,” she says sharply. “Open the first aid cabinet.”

“This man is not an authorized visitor. His Psycho-Pass is at criminal levels. Shall I alert the police?”

“No,” Akane says. “And never mind, I’ll open the cabinet myself.” She goes and gets the bandages and alcohol, and returns to Kougami. Her mind feels crowded with the familiarity of him, with the lean, wolfish slope of his body, with the quiet certainty in his eyes.

Despite the casual way he holds himself, hands in his pockets, Kougami always seems as if he’s deep in his own mind working out complicated equations that only he understands. This is a man who was once an Inspector like she is, who must have been at the top of his class, who reads Spinoza and Pascal, who she used to order around like a dog, who is bleeding from a knife wound in his arm while he sits at her table.

“As efficient as always,” Kougami says, watching her work. She helps him take off his jacket and his shirt so she can get to his wounded arm. She pours alcohol onto a cotton ball and leans back on her heels.

“This will hurt,” she warns.

Kougami smiles. “Then go ahead and do it.”

“What happened?” she asks quietly, listening to him hiss in pain.

“Nothing you need to know about,” Kougami replies. “But I had to run, and your place was the closest I could reach. Sorry to inconvenience you like this.”

“Don’t ever say that,” Akane adominishes. “I won’t ask more because you’re right, I don’t need to know what you’re doing, but--” she slows, “--you need to be more careful. You shouldn’t even be in the country. The sensors are bound to catch you.”

“Good thing I know where they all are then,” Kougami says.

“In the city,” Akane says, “but nowhere else.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

“No one is denying that, Kougami-san,” she says. She finishes bandaging his wound and then realizes that he’s half-naked and she’s on her knees in front of him. Akane rarely blushes, she’s not that sort of person, but she turns her face away and gets to her feet.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been here before,” Kougami muses. What a kind pleasantry -- they both know he hasn’t. He looks around. “Cute,” he says, his gaze resting on Candy-chan. “It’s nice to know you have this. Something that’s not just work.”

“It doesn’t feel like that most days,” Akane replies truthfully. She doesn’t see her friends much anymore, the weight of Yuki's death still cuffed around her neck. She doesn’t go watch movies or read books in cafes, which she used to love. She definitely doesn’t invite men up to her apartment in the middle of the night, but Kougami doesn’t count, despite her uncomfortable dreams. Kougami is someone she once swore to protect and failed. Her mistakes let him become the killer he is now, and in doing so, tied herself to him. Kougami is the name in her sleep and the muscles of her heart and the sinews of her fist.

Is this love, she wonders. It feels more like terror.

“What’s with the dress?” Kougami asks. Akane looks down at herself. Black sheath dress, purple jewel-toned tights, chunky 2" heels, a barrette softening her blunt haircut. Formal but rather kittenish, verdict: not a threat, just the way Chief Kasei wants her to look at parties.

“I was out,” she says, removing her heels.

“Out where?”

She doesn’t want him to know, even though he must realize that by now she’s a plain old hunting dog too. “If you’re allowed to have secrets, then I should be allowed the same, Kougami-san,” she says quietly. He takes a breath and nods.

“I worry about you.”

“You shouldn’t,” she says. “My Psycho-Pass keeps me safe, remember.” She makes her tone light. “I’ll be fine.”

But he acts like he hasn’t heard her. He rubs the back of his neck with his uninjured arm, and then drops it, stares at her intently. “It’s why I came back. Came here. I could have gone to another safe place in the city. Ginoza would have sheltered me, or Shion. But--” he looks her in the eyes, “I came here specifically because I want you to come with me.”

Akane’s lungs twist. She doesn’t like thinking of him going to Ginoza or Karanomori instead -- she’s possessive of him that way, he’s _hers_ , her ghost to bear. “Is that what you’ve wanted to say this entire time?”

“Yeah, more or less,” Kougami says. “They have you trapped here. I can keep you safe.”

“You can’t even keep yourself safe,” she says.

Kougami smiles sharply. “Well, maybe. But the two of us would be a match for whatever they throw against us, don’t you think?”

The two of us. She thinks back to that day when they first met, when she was just his clueless rookie Inspector, his too-young master who held the leash with a nervous hand. “I’m needed here,” Akane says. “I can do things here no one else can. I can make a difference.”

“I know,” Kougami says.

“Then why did you ask?”

“Do you know,” Kougami says evenly, “that out in the countryside I can steal a car and drive for miles without seeing any living thing. Just the skies and endless quiet. There’s a lot of time to think.”

“Thinking about what?” Akane asks, holding her breath.

“Thinking about…” Kougami tilts his head. “I’ve never seen this dress before. Is it new?”

“I’ve had it for years,” she replies.

“Huh,” Kougami says. He looks at her with his dark eyes. “I’ve slept with Inspectors before, I want you to know.”

“W-why are you telling me this, Kougami-san?” Akane asks. “Your thoughts are bouncing around all over the place.”

“I’m saying that my motives aren’t pure,” Kougami says. “When I was an Enforcer, I used whatever I could to get the upper hand on my Inspectors. Before you there were at least a handful of others. Sometimes my power over them was my past, my knowledge as a former Inspector, my skills. With some of them, especially the women, it was… something else.”

Akane says nothing.

“I should go.” Kougami stands up. “Thanks for the bandages, and for not arresting me.”

No, she thinks. If she’s going to make a mistake and do something she regrets, she wants it to be him. “Don’t go,” she says. 

Kougami shakes his head. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have said anything. For a moment there I thought -- we’re probably never going to see each other again, what do I have to lose? But the way I feel about you isn’t how I felt about the others, is it?”

“Kougami-san--”

“Have a nice life, Inspector Tsunemori. Be a better person than me.” He heads for the doorway, and it’s only her hand on his arm that makes him stop. He tenses.

“If we’re never going to see each other again,” she says, and she’s surprised by how angry her voice sounds, “then why not?”

He laughs, low in his throat. Everybody knows that Kougami is a dangerous man that needs to be approached with caution and a Dominator set to kill. But she isn’t afraid. She stands on her tiptoes and pulls him down to her, breathing in the breath from his lungs. He goes with her, strangely docile, and Akane doesn’t let herself think about what she is going to do next, for once in her very regimented life she lets herself be reckless. She touches her mouth to his softly, marveling at how easy it seems. A kiss, once given, can’t be taken back, and Kougami exhales deeply.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

“Better you than someone on a dating site,” she says seriously, watching him scowl. “Better you than someone I don’t know.”

She trusts him, is what she doesn’t say. She trusts Kougami to be gentle with her, to be patient with her as she learns. When she kisses him again it’s deeper, longer, and this is another thing she trusts him for as well -- she trusts him not to make fun of her halting, sharp-elbowed awkwardness, how this isn't something she has done much of before. If anything Kougami kisses her back just as intently, his hands resting on her hips. He tastes like his favourite brand of cigarettes, the ones she lights sometimes just to remember him by. She doesn't smoke, except when she does.

“Is your arm--?” she asks.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he says and kisses her again. It’s clear he hasn’t shaven this morning because there’s a light layer of stubble on his jaw. It rubs against her as they kiss, but it makes Akane shiver in a good way. She reaches up a hand to touch the back of his neck, just a light touch, but the way Kougami reacts to it is amazing. He groans and backs her up against the wall, crowding Akane with his well-muscled body. She had let herself forget what a physical presence he was, how he could take on the combat cyborgs at their highest setting and still beat them to shreds. She shivers again.

Sex is normal. Sex is natural. Sex between two consenting parties is good for your Hue. But Akane finds that she isn’t thinking any of that right now -- that when Kougami bites her ear and kisses along her neck, she can’t think of this as some sort of beneficial habit like brushing your teeth or combing your hair. She can only lift her hands and cup his jaw, murmuring his name as they trade long, deep kisses, until finally he’s trying to get her out of her dress.

She helps him. She lifts her arms and waits as he slides the dress over her shoulders and her head, and then rolls down her tights. Akane doesn’t feel particularly self-conscious about her body. She’s small and boyishly slender with absolutely no curves to speak of -- she’s no Karanomori -- but her body is, recent lack of exercise and junk food aside, a tool that serves her well. It does what she needs it to. It’s her weapon, fast and deadly, and when Kougami unhooks her bra and cups her flat breasts with his hands, his face is reverent.

She wants to see him too. She tugs at his jeans. Kougami smirks at her frown of concentration. He helps her along, and then his pants are off and they are leaning against the wall pressing their bodies together. Akane closes her eyes at the first full-length flush of his cock against her groin. Oh, but she’s still wearing her underwear, isn’t she? It feels hot and solid nonetheless, and she grinds her hips against him curiously. 

“Yeah,” he says, “like that.” He grinds back against her, and her eyes fly open.

“Feels good?” he asks.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“It’s supposed to,” Kougami says. “Means we’re doing it right.”

She laughs a little. “I’m relieved to hear it,” she says and is treated to Kougami’s quickfire grin before he grabs her wrists and holds them above her head. Akane gasps at that -- she likes it more than she thought she would -- and her entire body goes volcano hot as Kougami grinds hard against her. 

She tilts her head back, bares her neck. Kougami kisses her with teeth.

She’s wet, she realizes. It becomes all the more apparent when Kougami shoves a hand in her underwear and spreads her apart with his fingers. She does blush then, burying her face in his shoulder, but her nerves buzz pleasantly as he circles her wetness with the tips of his fingers. She can feel every one of his callouses. 

“Akane,” he’s saying in her ear. “Akane.”

“What?” she asks hoarsely. 

“Tell me if this hurts,” he says. She braces herself for the inevitable pain, but it doesn’t come. Kougami doesn’t try to push into her. He just circles her cunt with his fingers again and again, pressing down on her clit until she cries out, high and sharp. It feels so good. Kougami is so gentle. He plays with her until she starts shaking, and her knees feel so weak it’s hard to stay standing. Kougami keeps her up with his good arm; his other arm is still keeping her wrists above her head.

She’s incredibly vulnerable like this, it’s like when Sibyl can read everything about her with one scan. But Kougami is nothing like Sibyl. Kougami she trusts absolutely to keep her safe. He works her clit intently until her wetness pours out of her with one hard gush and she’s spasming against his fingers, crying out against his mouth.

It’s not over yet. She expects him to lead them towards the bed, but instead he carries her to the kitchen table, just scoops her up like she doesn’t weigh anything -- and she probably doesn’t, not to him. He deposits her on the kitchen table, positioning her right on the edge, and falls to his knees. “What are you--?” she starts to ask, and then falls silent when her question is answered by his mouth on her inner thigh.

Akane feels light-headed from orgasm, soft and tender and good. When Kougami’s kisses travel from her thighs to her thatch of curls she presses her fists against her mouth and bites down. It’s too much too soon, and she’s still shaking with residual spasms when Kougami helps her out of her wet underwear and then tongues her boldly.

Akane moans. She can’t help it. 

Kougami has no complaints about her moan, if his shaky breathing is any indication. On his knees he seems even more powerful than ever, and Akane is helpless as he pulls her forward and buries his face between her thighs. Kougami Shinya is eating her out, she thinks wildly, and it makes her almost giggle, but then the giggle turns into another moan and she’s holding onto his shoulders as he strokes her clit with his tongue, alternating hard, rough strokes with gentle little flutters.

Her legs shake. Her spine feels like jelly. She falls backwards onto the kitchen table, staring up at the ceiling, jerking with pleasure every time Kougami licks into her. Her body feels like one long electrical system and Kougami is short-circuiting her with everything he’s got. She shuts her eyes and opens them again to see Candy-chan floating above her.

“Tsunemori Akane, your pulse has increased 76% and your breathing is unstable and erratic,” Candy-chan says. “Shall I call a doctor?”

Kougami laughs between her legs. His mouth is shiny and wet.

“N-no thank you,” Akane manages to say. 

“You have an incoming call from Shimotsuki Mika,” Candy-chan continues. “Will you answer?”

“Not right now,” Akane chokes out, and she feels slightly guilty about this -- what if Mika really needs her? But Kougami’s tongue is pushing into her cunt, burying itself as deep as it can, licking up her juices, and her breath hitches up into her throat as she comes, hips arching upwards and back lifting from the table.

“God,” Kougami says roughly, “look at you. I want to do this so many times, you won’t even be able to walk in the morning.”

Akane struggles to get her breathing under control. “That’s not -- very -- sensible,” she manages and nearly misses Kougami’s eyeroll. “Please,” she says, “I want to--” She doesn’t know how to finish that sentence but she looks down at Kougami’s cock, and then is surprised to see his come splattered over his thighs and on the ground.

“Did you…?”

“It’s been a while,” Kougami says. He sounds embarrassed.

“Oh,” Akane says.

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“I won’t,” she promises, but then she recalls how quickly he knelt for her, and falls quiet. She watches Kougami get up from the linoleum and put on his jeans. Things are decidedly awkward now, more so than she had anticipated. Maybe they shouldn’t have done this, she thinks, but then she watches Kougami furrow his brow as he searches for his boxers, the way he used to look when he was reading case files at the MWPSB, a sight so familiar. It means he's likely craving nicotine, something to steady his racing mind. Watching this habit of his, Akane knows that she has no regrets.

“I should go,” Kougami finally says when he’s fully dressed. Akane watches him from where she’s still naked, sitting on the kitchen table with her legs dangling.

“Okay,” she says.

He pauses. There is a space between them, a flourishing second or two where a kiss might belong, but Kougami doesn’t try to kiss her again, even though her pulse quickens at the imagined possibility. It’s true that she will probably never see him after this encounter. The thought sobers her, brings her back to reality. This isn’t some fairy tale her grandmother is reading to her. She can’t let him think that he’s welcome to drop by her apartment. It’s too risky for him.

She controls her voice, turns it cold. “If you ever come around again, I’ll turn you in.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just fixes her with a long, indecipherable look, and then he tugs on his gloves and walks out the door.

:::

She returns to work the next morning and no one notices a difference. Good, she thinks, that’s the way it should be. Sex isn’t some mind-altering event that should change anything about her. She is the same Tsunemori Akane that she has always been, and she settles back into the rhythm of her post-Kougami life, leading Division 1, mentoring Mika, and keeping the Enforcers in line while solving crimes with her own particular methods, methods based on a sense of justice the Sibyl System can't understand and barely condones.

If she thinks about Kougami, it’s in bits and fragments. A glimpse of a tall, dark-haired man on the street, a shadow of a self-satisfied smile on an Enforcer’s face when he catches his prey. Akane tries to put it out of her mind, except for at night and in the privacy of her own home. Who can really fault her then? She is, after all, a human being.

If things ever truly fall apart, she thinks. If there ever comes a day when she is more useful outside of the Sibyl System than within it, she’ll find Kougami.

She’ll walk up to him and put her hand on the back of his.

She’ll say his name.

She’ll say, I’m here now.

You don’t have to wait anymore.

I’m here.

:::

There’s a new book waiting for her at her door. She picks it up and smiles a little when she sees what it is. Charles Perrault's _Sleeping Beauty_. The maiden in the castle of thorns who slept for a hundred years.

She has the day off, for once. She spends it in bed, reading.


End file.
